The invention of the present application relates to an artificial stone molded product. More specifically, the invention of the present application relates to an artificial stone molded product which has a night decorativeness, a luminousness such as a luminescence and a light-emitting property accompanied by ultraviolet absorption and which is useful in a building material or a sight material as a direction indicator or a position guide using light in dark surroundings.
An artificial stone obtained by pulverizing a natural stone and mixing the pulverizate with a resin or the like for solidification has been so far known. And regarding this artificial stone, various attempts have been made to provide a product having a tone of a natural stone such as marble, granite or the like and being excellent in a hardness and a strength.
As an approach to improve properties and a performance of such an artificial stone, there has been also a proposal of imparting a light function using a luminous material such as a luminescent material or a fluorescent material such as an ultraviolet light-emitting material which emits light through ultraviolet absorption. This approach is conducted by mixing a fluorescent material with a resin component as a binder of an artificial stone for solidification or by mixing a luminescent fluorescent material such as strontium aluminate or the like or a ultraviolet fluorescent material with an unsaturated polyester, a methacrylic resin, a glass or the like for solidification, pulverizing the mixture, and using the resulting product as an aggregate to form an artificial stone.
However, in the case of the conventional luminous or fluorescent artificial stone, there were defects that in either of the above-mentioned methods, it is only in the position where the binder resin component or the aggregate exposed to the surface of the artificial stone is arranged that the luminescent material or the like gives the fluorescent function and the luminescent material or the like contained in the artificial stone molded product does not act at all in portions other than the above-mentioned. A fluorescent material such as a luminescent material or the like is quite expensive, and even the addition of the same in a small amount increases the overall cost to from 3 to 10 times. Accordingly, the ordinary artificial stone containing therein a fluorescent material free from this function was not practical in view of the cost.
Further, a luminous layer formed of a luminescent material on a surface of an artificial stone has been so far mostly spread throughout the surface. Accordingly, for example, a product is not one in which only a guide figure or a guide pattern indicating a direction or a position which is required in dark surroundings at night is formed of a luminous layer.
Meanwhile, it has also been studied that only a guide figure or a guide pattern is formed of a luminous layer as mentioned above. However, in the case of the ordinary luminous layer, an adhesion with a substrate is poor, and the luminous layer itself has a poor abrasion resistance. Accordingly, there has been a problem that especially in the application to a floor, a predetermined function is not provided owing to delamination, dropping, abrasion and the like of the luminous layer.
For this reason, there have been so far problems that the application and the design of the luminous artificial stone are quite limited owing to a high cost and restrictions of a luminousness and physical properties.
It has been therefore required to realize a new artificial stone molded product which is excellent in a luminousness as well as in an adhesion integrity with a substrate of a luminous layer and physical properties such as an abrasion resistance and the like, which has a luminousness or a fluorescence and which is useful as a light guide or a night decorative material in dark surroundings, while decreasing the cost of the product upon using a luminous or fluorescent material such as a luminescent material or the like only in a figure or a patter required.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention of the present application provides an artificial stone molded product in which protrusions or embedded grooves for a figure or a pattern are provided integrally on or in a flat surface of a substrate, and a main composition comprises an aggregate of an inorganic material and a resin, characterized in that at least a part of the above-mentioned protrusions or embedded grooves are luminous or fluorescent light-emitting portions which contain a luminous or fluorescent material having a luminescence or a luminousness accompanied by ultraviolet absorption and an aggregate of a transparent inorganic material, or an aggregate of a transparent inorganic material having a surface baked with the above-mentioned luminous or fluorescent material as a part of the aggregate of the inorganic material.
The present invention further provides a process for producing the above-mentioned artificial stone molded product.